Saturday, 27 June 2015

Today I thought I would post something completely different to my usual style. I was asked to make some samples for a Sheena show in Germany and this was one of the stamps on the list. Also, it was specifically to be in Spectrum Aquas…….After a first moment of fear…this couldn't be further away from my normal style…..I sat down one evening, water colour card in one hand, aqua colours in the other, and took the plunge.

I can't tell you how satisfying it was! Alcohol colouring is quite a precise thing, but with the water colours it was almost like splashing a bit on and seeing what happens. I little bit of splashing and blotting later and the end result was this……...

Now I am no water colour artist, but I thought this came out pretty good for an amateur. It was surprisingly easy to get some different colour tones and a bit of light and shade in there, with relatively few pens.

I have to admit though, the key to it all is to use proper water colour card. I had tried before on some similar textured card, because I wanted to colour a digital image that I had, and you really don't get the same effect at all….so it's true when they say the right tools for the job!!

So - enough of my waffle for today. I will leave you with few challenges that I would like to enter.

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Now that Father's Day has passed, I can blog the card that I made for my dad, using this great image that I found of Digistamp Boutique. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was the one for my dad as he has a habit of sitting down to watch the TV, blinking his eyes and finding it is an hour later when he re-opens them!

I had a great time doing a bi of paper piecing on this one and i really like how the arm chair came out with it's chequered material. The rest of 'my dad' is coloured with my Spectrum Noir pens.

So it's a very quick post today, but I hope you like my card, which I am going to enter in to the following challenges:

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

It's time for a new challenge over at Fab n Funky and the theme this week is Gorgeous Girls, sponsored by Sassy Studios.

So the sassy lady that you see on my card today is indeed a sassy studios image and I think she would be perfect for birthdays, hen nights and a whole host of other occasions.

The cherries caught my eye as I knew I had a paper to match somewhere in my digi stash and, low and behold I found it on a Crafters Companion CD…….Strawberry Kisses. I was really pleased as you would think the two elements had been made to go together.

So here is my sassy lady all coloured up with my spectrum noirs and topped of with a little bit of glittery sparkle.

So I hope you will come and join our challenge this week…I am sure the 'Gorgeous Girls' theme will provide lots of inspiration and no doubt plenty of glitter and bling too. I am looking forward to looking at all your lovely creations.

Monday, 15 June 2015

Hi all. I realised it's been a while since I blogged (been very busy with some exciting new stuff that I am not allowed to show yet!), so I thought I would do a quick post today, to represent the time here in the UK when our minds turn to boys and men. Yes - Father's Day is approaching and, although this isn't a fathers day card as such, I am sure it would appeal to many men's 'inner boy'!!

Everything that you see on this card (apart from the ribbon and the candy dots) has come from the Polkadoodles Pretty Tuff CD, which was one of my 'go to' sources when my boy was a bit younger. To be honest I think it would still work down, but I am afraid there wouldn't be an image that he or his friends hadn't already had……..That's how much I like it! :-)

I love the colours of the papers on the CD as they vary from the regular red / free/ blue but they are still clearly 'boy' colours and it's great to be able to match the colouring on the image to the papers, as I have done here.

I coloured this little lad with pro markers and came close to putting a few mud splatters on there too, just for over all effect…but I was too scared incase I ruined the card at the final hurdle!

Anyway, with all the boy themed challenges out there this week, it seemed a shame not to enter a few, so here they are:

Sunday, 7 June 2015

One more sleep to go.....until the Morgan Fitzsimons Flights of Fantasy release at Create and Craft!

Tomorrow at 8am sees the launch of another new licence for the Crafters Companion crew, and here's one of the samples that I have made.

This time I have used Spectrum Aquas for the colouring of the image and used some of the lovely backing papers from the CD.

The image itself is really lovely and is printed straight from the CD. What's lovely about these images is that the is plenty of details, but it's not too overwhelming, and they seem to adapt really well to both water colours and alcohol markers.

It's getting quite late here in the UK now, so that's all from me for now, but don't forget to watch out for the shows to see lots of brilliant inspiration.

Friday, 5 June 2015

Good old Crafters Comapnion Towers have been keeping us very busy since the new DT was set up, and here is one of the reasons why….yet another new release coming up this Monday on Create and Craft.

It's a brand new licence this time around, called Flights of Fantasy, created by the very talented artist Morgan Fitzsimons.

Now I have to be honest and say that ordinarily these might bot the images that I would go for, mostly because they seem a bit scary, colouring wise, but I have to say that they are really fun to colour. It takes a little time…but then again the best things always do…and if you concentrate on one area at a time, it all seems to come together at the end.

For this example I chose one of the Spectrum Noir Companions set and printed on to Neenah. There are two sheets on each Spectrum Noir Companion selection and each page contains about 4 images…all similar but sightly different, so you can get a really nice theme going.

I coloured my lady in with my Spectrum Noirs and used my absolutely favourite skin combination of FS1, FS2, FS4 and FS8. I also think that an absolute essential for skin is the brush nibs that you can get. I have them in each of these 4 colours and they make facial colouring soooooo much less scary!

The beautiful backing papers that you see are also from the CD and I have to admit that I particularly love this pink / aqua combination.

I cut some little flowers out of pearlescent white paper and coloured them with my Spectrums ti make sure I had a perfect colour match, before adding some pearl drops to finish.

There are going to be a bunch of shows next week with some fabulous inspiration so make sure to have a look if you can.

Meanwhile I am going to share the love a bit more by entering a few challenges:

Wednesday, 3 June 2015

Welcome back, fo a new challenge with Fab and Funky, where we are being sponsored for the first time by the talented Sherri Baldy. I am already a fan and have lots of her digis and stamps, so the hardest part was deciding which image to use to make my card and, in the end, I chose this lovely lady.

I also wanted to try something a bit different, colouring wise so, on this image, for the very first time, I have colored everything in Spectrum Noir pencils. The over all look is much lighter and softer, but you can still get lots of lovely shading by blending out with the blending solution.

The challenge this week is to use gingham, so I have gone for a splash of gingham backing paper which happens to match beautifully with my ditsy flower paper.

The image itself is quite sizeable so I have kept the layout quite simple, to keep the focus on the cute little girl.

My Family

About Me

I am a working wife to a lovely husband and devoted mother to my son. I love to relax (and keep a grip on my sanity!) by crafting and I have lots of excuses to craft now as I'm a Design Team member for theCute Card Thursday and Fab n Funky challenge blogs.